“You can do that?”
“At the right price, you can do anything.” I wanted to bang my head. Now I sounded like a pompous ass.
“Oh, well...I hope you have fun. I was hoping you were free today, but we can go next time—”
“Wait, Odette.” I chuckled. Did she really think I wanted to go scuba diving on my own? “I wanted to take you.”
“Me? But I don’t know how to scuba dive.”
I laughed, it wasn’t really that funny, but her facial expression just made me laugh anyway. Rubbing the back of my head, I sighed, completely giving up. “I was trying to think of some extravagant date to take you on later this afternoon. And I know you said it feels like I am using moves when I do so, but I still want our time to be...memorable.”
“It isn’t already?”
“No, I mean...” Bloody hell of hells! “I’m having a lot of trouble this morning, apparently. I have no idea what is wrong with me.”
“Okay, while you are trying to figure it out, would you like to go to a poetry reading with me?” she asked and lifted a small, slightly crumpled flyer for me to see.
“A poetry reading?”
She nodded. “It’s in a small, independent bookstore. I don’t think many people will be there, so why not be among poets like yourself.”
I was thinking of scuba diving with exotic fishes, the symphony, flying off to some beach with blue waters, something magical, something extraordinary. And she wanted to go to a local bookstore to listen to poetry with me. I smiled, nodding as I took the flyer.
“Yes, I’d love to go. I think this is perfect.”
She might have been perfect, as well.
I felt bubbly—like someone had shaken up a can of pop and opened it inside my stomach. I’d never felt like this before, and I wasn’t sure what to do about it or how to make it stop.
I tried to concentrate on what was in front of me, which was a bookstore by the name of Once Upon A Time. Sadly, it was nothing like the cool, young poetry vibe I was hoping for. I knew it wouldn’t be the most eventful or popular spot in Seattle, but I didn’t expect it to be so dead. Well, at least as close to death as it was. In my mind, I had somehow convinced myself that it would be filled with people around our age, drinking coffee and wearing berets.
Instead, it looked more like a cross between a nursing home and a library. I looked at Gale to try to gauge his reaction to my slight failure of a spontaneous date. Thinking he must’ve thought scuba diving would’ve been a much better idea. However, to my surprise, he was smiling, looking up at the book stacks and the few elderly people walking through in amusement.
“What a perfectly named store,” he whispered to me.
“Huh?”
He leaned over and whispered, “The shelves have written stories, and the people have living ones.”
“Are you here for the poetry reading?” asked an elderly woman with pink-dyed hair and a wrinkled rose tattoo—at least what I thought was a rose—on her wrist as she approached with the help of a walking stick.
“Yes, we are,” Gale answered proudly, causing the woman to smile widely.
“Oh, good. We don’t get many young’uns in here anymore,” she said and pointed to the book at the desk. “Pick a poem and join us by the window.”
“Pick a poem?” I repeated.
“Yes, dear. We pick them from the stacks and then take turns reading. Anything you want is fine.”
“Thank you,” Gale stated, taking my hand, and I tried not to make a big deal out of it in my head again, but that didn’t work. I couldn’t help but think about how causally we just held hands now.
“Are you sure you are okay with this?” I whispered as we reached the first stack of books.
“Why would I not be,” he whispered back. “I’ve never done anything like this before. It’s very interesting. Are you not okay?”
I shook my head quickly. “I’m fine, it’s not what I was thinking, but it’s fine. But if you’re happy, I’m okay.”
“Is that so?” His eyebrow rose. “Careful, Ms. Wyntor, one might think you are trying to sweep me off my feet and not the other way around.”
I rolled my eyes and let go of his hand. “Go pick a poem.”
He chuckled, saying nothing as he turned back to glance through the shelves. And because I was...bubbly, I found myself watching him as he picked up a book and flipped through a few pages, every once in a while finding a verse or passage that caught his eye, and he stood still completely engrossed, the corner of his lips upturned happily.
“You’re staring, Odette.”
I nearly dropped the book I was reaching for. He hadn’t glanced up at me until that moment, looking through the shelves to see me.
“I have no idea what you are talking about,” I lied, looking away from him as I reached for a book in another row.
Of course, he followed me, leaning up beside me, a grin on his face as he spoke.
“Oh, whose starry eyes peer down upon me,
Black swan,
Young fawn,
Aborning, forewarning the morning dawn.”
I glanced over his arm to see if that was on the page or from his mind, but the book was in another language, so I couldn’t tell.
“Is that what it says?”
Instead of answering, he kissed my cheek and moved on to another bookshelf—and there went a can of bubbles. I took a breath and tried to ignore him.
But the harder I tried, the more...the more I wanted not to.
How had everything changed so quickly?
And how long could it stay like this?
The thing about stories that started with once upon a time was that they were never very simple or easy.
And that is what it felt like being with Gale right now. Simple and easy, and I wanted it to last for as long as possible. But how was that possible? It could be long.
He felt like a normal guy—most of the time.
But he was a prince.
A real-life prince.
“Have you two found one?” the elderly one asked, appearing almost out of thin air.
“I have, but my girlfriend has not, yet.”
My head whipped back to him, but he kept a straight face as he looked to her. “She is too busy admiring my handsome face.”
I gasped.
I shook my head. “I have one. Please ignore him.”
The woman laughed at us, and when she turned to tell the others that we were ready, I shoved my elbow into Gale’s arm.
“Girlfriend?”
“Would you prefer fiancée?”
“Gale.”
“Odette.”
I glared, and he winked, taking my hand into his again, leading me forward. And I followed...happily, bubbly.
Oh God, was this how it was to fall for so someone?
Chapter 22
“Is that your boyfriend?” a young boy, no more than eight or nine, asked her as she gave him the food basket. He pointed straight at me with his eyes narrowed as if I’d stolen from his Thanksgiving Day plate.
Odette glanced over her shoulder at me, looked me up and down once before shaking her head.
“No, I can do much better than him, don’t you think?” she asked him.